U.S. ground forces began their long-awaited assault into Fallujah yesterday, capturing the city’s main hospital, soon after Iraq’s interim government declared martial law as part of a 60-day state of emergency.

Witnesses reported heavy fighting on the eastern and western fringes of the city, including around a bridge over

the Euphrates.

American AC-130 gunships were seen soaring above the city, spitting out bullets as flares and tracer fire crisscrossed the night skies. Several Iraqi prisoners were taken, sources said.

The battle started after interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s government brought down the hammer for the first time and exercised its right to emergency power.

Although it has had this power since taking over from the U.S.-led administration in June, it didn’t use it until yesterday despite the raging rebellion.

“We are going to implement it whenever and wherever is necessary. This will send a very powerful message that we are serious,” Allawi said.

“We want to secure the country so elections can be done in a peaceful way and the Iraqi people can participate in the [Jan. 31] elections freely, without the intimidation by terrorists and by forces who are trying to wreck the political process in Iraq.”

The emergency, which does not extend to Kurdish-controlled areas in the north, is a martial-law situation that gives the government the right to impose curfews, set up checkpoints, and search and detain people. The government has vowed to take back rebel-held areas before the election.

In the meantime, Marines and 1st Army Division troops – more than 10,000 – hunkered down outside Fallajuh awaiting orders from Allawi to begin an assault on the rebel stronghold.

The fight could become the largest U.S. urban battle since Vietnam.

Marines were given powerful pep talks by their officers, who conjured up visions of heroic battles in the past.

Sgt. Maj. Carlton Kent, the top enlisted Marine in Iraq, told the Leathernecks that Fallujah would be “no different” from the historic fights at Inchon in Korea, the flag-raising victory at Iwo Jima, or the assault to evict North Vietnamese troops from Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive.

“You’re all in the process of making history,” Kent boomed.

As in the conquest of Samara just over a month ago, two Iraq units will follow behind the U.S. forces to act as a stabilizing force once the city is taken.

“This is America’s fight,” said Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the Marine’s commanding general.